Microsoft has been having a difficult time selling its own Surface RT tablet in high volumes. The Surface RT tablet was first Windows RT device on the market and runs a version of the Windows operating system designed specifically for ARM processors.

Microsoft hardware partner Samsung has announced that it won't be releasing its Windows RT device in the United States. Samsung says that retail partners aren't seeing strong demand for Windows RT tablet and the value proposition for Windows RT isn't clear to consumers. Samsung has also not been forthcoming with its plans for Windows RT devices in markets outside the United States.

Samsung senior vice president Mike Abary told CNET:

There wasn't really a very clear positioning of what Windows RT meant in the marketplace, what it stood for relative to Windows 8, that was being done in an effective manner to the consumer. When we did some tests and studies on how we could go to market with a Windows RT device, we determined there was a lot of heavy lifting we still needed to do to educate the customer on what Windows RT was. And that heavy lifting was going to require pretty heavy investment. When we added those two things up, the investments necessary to educate the consumer on the difference between RT and Windows 8, plus the modest feedback that we got regarding how successful could this be at retail from our retail partners, we decided maybe we ought to wait.

Abary also noted that one of the big selling points for Windows RT devices was that the devices should be less expensive than those running Windows 8. "We didn't necessarily attain the price point that we hoped to attain," Abary said. "It's not an issue on Microsoft's side. It's more an issue of how the product was built and some of the tradeoffs we had to incorporate in it."

Abary did leave the door open for Samsung Windows RT devices to come to the US in the future. He added, "We want to see how the market develops for RT. It's not something we're shelving permanently. It's still a viable option for us in the future, but now might not be the right time."

quote: I'm not sure it was worth the effort to port Windows to ARM. The performance just isn't there. ARM is basically now just keeping Intel's pricing in check.

Precisely. It's just a backup plan in case ARM did have tangible benefits, whether through real innovation or Intel's foot-dragging to protect higher margin products. It was never in MS's long term plans.

I don't think much effort was needed, though. They already had the ARM kernel for WP8, and it's the same UI and API from Win8. Pretty minimal marginal investment, AFAICS.